Watercress Soup Recipe
Watercress soup is the best option for bridal shower feast or brunch, as it is easy to make and takes less time to cook. All your guests, especially women will praise you to include watercress soup in the menu. Watercress is among the highly nutritional vegetables recipe as it comes from the family of green cabbage. It has many health benefits. It is an excellent source of carotenes, vitamins like B6, B1, and B2. It is also a good source of manganese, calcium, copper, iron, fibers, and vitamin E. It has 3 times more calcium and phosphorus than other vegetables. It is also a good source of folic acid and vitamin A and C, in some countries it is called as herb.
Difficulty Level: Easy
Serves: 5-6
Category:Vegetarian (You can use any non-vegetarian stock or broth)
Time to Prepare: 45 minutes
Ingredients
- Watercress 3 Large bunches
- Potatoes medium 4
- Butter 110 gm
- Stock of marigold Swiss vegetable (bouillon powder) 2 liters
- White part of leeks 5
- Black pepper freshly crushed
- Fraiche cream 4 tablespoon
- Salt
Preparation
- Peel the potatoes and chop them
- Clean watercress, destalk it and then chop
- Keep some watercress leaves aside to garnish
Method
Take a large pan or saucepan. After heating it, put butter in it and let is melt on low temperature. Now add chopped potatoes, white part of leeks, and chopped watercress. Stir and mix all this well. Now sprinkle some salt on it and cover it by a lid. Let all the vegetables cook for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes add the stock in it, bring it to the boiling point and let it boil for more than 10-15 minutes. Now, remove the pan from flame and blend the mixture with hand blender. Make a smooth puree of this mixture. Keep the pan on flame again for 5 minutes to boil. Take a small pan and heat it. Add the fraiche cream in this small pan; add some crushed black pepper in it. Once the cream is melted, remove the pan from flame. Now, serve it hot in bowl and garnish with cream, watercress leaves, (that you kept aside) and freshly crushed black pepper.
Variations
- Instead of marigold Swiss vegetable stock, you can use chicken stock, crab stock, or vegetable stock.
- Instead of potatoes, you can use pumpkin
- You can garnish it with grated cheese or a teaspoon of butter
- For garnishing you can use pieces of black olives or half cooked pieces of mushrooms or with fresh corns or with deep fried pieces of whole wheat bread
Watercress soup recipe 2
Difficulty Level: Easy
Serves: 5-6
Category: Vegetarian
Time to Prepare: 30 minutes
Ingredient
- Watercress leaves 4 cups
- Finely chopped onions 3 tablespoon
- Olive oil 1 tablespoon
- Almond milk ½ cup
- Vegetable stock 2 cups
- Water 2 cups
- Salt
Procedure
Clean watercress leaves well and then rinse it well. Now, heat the pan or pot. Put olive oil in the pan and let it become hot. Now, put chopped onion in the pan and saute it until it softens and becomes transparent. Add vegetable stock and water in the pan. Bring the mixture to the boiling point and let it simmer for 5 minutes. Now add watercress leaves and salt and let it boil again. After that keep it on low flame and keep stirring the mixture at least for 2 minutes. Now, turn off the flame, and then add almond milk in it. Blend the mixture with the help of hand blender till it becomes a puree. Serve hot in bowl. You can garnish it with some watercress leaves and black or white pepper powder. You can garnish this soup with the ideas mentioned above.
It has various health benefits. It works as expectorant, diuretic, antioxidants, and also aids in digestion. It is believed that it also works against lung cancer. There is no scientific reason for that. One recent study found that consumption of watercress may help to decrease the growth of breast cancer. The research is going on these topics; let us hope soon we will get some positive results about it. You can tell your guests about all these health benefits of watercress.